Alasdair Roberts

It is easy to get caught up in the debate about the merits of different candidates for chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, but doing so misses a larger point. The real story is the intensity of the fight itself, which is evidence of a shift of power toward central bankers that began under U.S. President Ronald Reagan and has been aggravated since the financial crisis of 2008.

The recent financial crisis has battered the credibility of technocrats. It is no longer clear that, left to their own devices, they will produce the one thing that justifies giving them authority: better decisions.